Assault (also known as attack, battering, beating up, assault with intent to kill, and aggravated assault) is a type of crime against the person where the defendant either knowingly causes offensive touching or inspires the victim to believe that harmful or offensive contact will be imminent. Some legal systems draw a distinction between assault and battery, but in other jurisdictions, the offense is often combined with battery into a single criminal act called “assault and battery.”
In order to be convicted of a criminal charge of assault, the prosecutor must show that the defendant acted willfully by overtly touching the victim, or acted with the specific intent to cause the victim fear of immediate harmful or offensive contact. The touch or threat must also be reasonably likely to occur, based on what an ordinary reasonable person would think under the circumstances.
A judge might choose to give a first-time offender probation for an assault charge, especially if the offender was not trying to hurt the victim, and the offender is otherwise a good citizen. Conditions of probation might include anger management classes, substance abuse counseling, staying away from the victim, and paying restitution to the victim.
A deadly weapon is any object that could cause serious injury or death, such as a gun, knife, brass knuckles, metal trophy, baseball bat, oven cleaner, glass bottle, or steel-toed boots. Many states define serious bodily harm as anything more than a scrape or bruise that doesn’t require hospitalization, and includes broken bones, sprains, chemical burns, disfigurement, severe pain, amputations, gangrene, disabling brain damage, and permanent loss of limbs.